A lawyer for John McAfee said Tuesday that ajudge has ordered the software company founder released from a Guatemalandetention center where he has been fighting being returned to Belize.
Attorney Telesforo Guerra said the judge notified himverbally of the ruling, but added that it might take a day for formal writtennotification to win McAfee's release, possibly as soon as Wednesday.
Judge Judith Secaida did not immediately return phone callsseeking to confirm the ruling.
Guerra said Secaida ruled that McAfee's detention wasillegal, ordered him released, and gave him 10 days to put his immigrationsituation in order. It was not immediately clear if McAfee could get some kindof temporary or transit visa to allow him to leave Guatemala.
McAfee has said he wants to return to the United States withhis 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend. Guerra said that would be his client'sbest option.
"For me, it's best that McAfee go to the United States,that's definitely the country where he will be safest," Guerra said."In Guatemala, he runs the risk that anything could happen to him."
McAfee was detained last week for immigration violationsafter he sneaked into Guatemala from neighboring Belize. He had been on the lamfor weeks before that, saying he donned disguises to avoid Belizean police whowant to question him in the fatal shooting in November of another U.S.expatriate, Gregory Viant Faull.
The victim lived a couple of houses down from McAfee'scompound on Ambergris Caye, an island off Belize's Caribbean coast. McAfeeacknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained aboutthem, but denies killing Faull.
McAfee has said corrupt Belizean authorities are persecutinghim, something officials in Belize deny. McAfee says he fears for his safety inBelize because he has sensitive information about official corruption andrefused to donate to local politicians.
In a live-stream Internet broadcast Sunday from theGuatemalan detention center where he was put under the government order that hebe returned to Belize, the 67-year-old McAfee said he wants to return to theUnited States and "settle down to whatever normal life" he can.
"I simply would like to live comfortably day by day,fish, swim, enjoy my declining years," he said.
McAfee is an acknowledged practical joker who has dabbled inyoga, ultra-light aircraft and the production of herbal medications. He has ledan eccentric life since he sold his stake in the software company named afterhim in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower histaxes.
He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but$4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, astory on the Gizmodo website quoted him as describing that claim as "notvery accurate at all."
Faull's family has said through a representative thatMcAfee's skillful courting of the media, including blog posts, email messagesclandestine interviews, has obscured the point that McAfee should submit topolice questioning.